Wheel weight

On 3/9/2019 12:55 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
Credit card touring really
means that one will be staying at hotels and eating at restaurants,
instead of camping and campfire cooking.

These days, that's what I prefer. I haven't done overnight in a tent for
many years now.

But I have to confess to still having that fantasy...


--
- Frank Krygowski

On 09-03-19 18:14, Frank Krygowski wrote:
Honestly, I hadn't checked that, mostly because I'm so happy with paper
maps (and Google Maps when needed). But checking now, I see there is a
lot of GIS information available from our county engineer's office. They
even have online links to county maps going back to the 1800s. I think I
just found a new way to pleasantly waste lots of time!

A few years ago, I sort of led a team that got city bike maps
accomplished, followed by two-county bike maps. In each case, we worked
with GIS specialists to get the maps produced.

One guy high up at the university was interested in the project, but was
adamant that paper maps would be a waste of time. His view was that
everyone wants everything on their phones these days. I disagreed, and
we did end up with paper maps in addition to having PDFs available
online. Of course, there was the guessing game of "How many should we
print?"

Whatever the answers were, they turned out to be too low. The maps were
mostly distributed at bike shops, supposedly for some nominal cost but
often for free. They were all gone in a month or so.

I don't doubt that online maps will get better and better in the future,
Â*and of course the GPS displays will also improve. But most of the
time, I either a) know where I want to go and how to get there, or b) am
fine with a bit of wondering, wandering and exploring. YMMV, of course.

My experience has been quite different. I have a substantial stack of
1:50,000 and some 1:25,000 Swiss topographical maps, but nowadays never
do more than occasionally browse through them in the evening. Even for
this sort of thing I find the online maps more usable, since I can zoom
in or out as needed. Underway it's all GPS and offline maps loaded on
devices.

For longer tours I use a Garmin GPS device on the handlebar of my bike.
A microSD card contains the 1:25,000 Swiss topographic map, which shows
a lot of detail. For parts of Europe and the USA I've uses maps from
https://openmtbmap.org/. Longer tours typically involve a GPS track
planned in advance, either my own or one downloaded from a biking
website. Then just a quick tap on the screen shows where to turn off
when on some remote forest road: "Is this the 5th or the 6th crossing,
and which one was I supposed to turn at?" is no longer a difficult
question. A battery charge is enough for about 8 hours, so the device
runs continuously on a tour. This is also good for geo-tagging photos
and for later seeing later where I actually went.

My smartphone is loaded with topo maps for use with the
SwitzerlandMobility app. This provides offline access to maps like these:
https://www.schweizmobil.ch/en/summer.html (Click on the "Map" area and
zoom in to see the maps in detail.) With these maps I can highlight
hiking, biking,and mountain biking routes, and the scale changes from
about 1:2,500 to 1:100,000 as needed.
I also subscribe to their service, so that I can upload tracks or draw
tracks using their web interface at home, and then download them to my
smartphone for use underway. Maps showing tour tracks can be downloaded
as pdf files, and I often add these to the set of landscape photos from
a tour. For example this tour from last September:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskJ9oqN1 (where I just now noticed that the map for
the second tour day had more "views" than anything else in the set).

Sometimes while planning at home I want to see whether what the topo map
shows as a trail is actually there or not. At https://map.geo.admin.ch I
zoom in to about 1:1,000 and then switch to aerial photos. At least in a
grassy area, a trail that's used to even a moderate extent will show up
as different from the surroundings.

And finally, the GPS-based PeakFinder app is good for identifying the
mountains on the horizon.

Ned

On 3/9/2019 4:38 PM, Ned Mantei wrote:
On 09-03-19 18:14, Frank Krygowski wrote:
Honestly, I hadn't checked that, mostly because I'm so happy with
paper maps (and Google Maps when needed). But checking now, I see
there is a lot of GIS information available from our county engineer's
office. They even have online links to county maps going back to the
1800s. I think I just found a new way to pleasantly waste lots of time!

A few years ago, I sort of led a team that got city bike maps
accomplished, followed by two-county bike maps. In each case, we
worked with GIS specialists to get the maps produced.

One guy high up at the university was interested in the project, but
was adamant that paper maps would be a waste of time. His view was
that everyone wants everything on their phones these days. I
disagreed, and we did end up with paper maps in addition to having
PDFs available online. Of course, there was the guessing game of "How
many should we print?"

Whatever the answers were, they turned out to be too low. The maps
were mostly distributed at bike shops, supposedly for some nominal
cost but often for free. They were all gone in a month or so.

I don't doubt that online maps will get better and better in the
future, Â*Â*and of course the GPS displays will also improve. But most
of the time, I either a) know where I want to go and how to get there,
or b) am fine with a bit of wondering, wandering and exploring. YMMV,
of course.

My experience has been quite different. I have a substantial stack of
1:50,000 and some 1:25,000 Swiss topographical maps, but nowadays never
do more than occasionally browse through them in the evening. Even for
this sort of thing I find the online maps more usable, since I can zoom
in or out as needed. Underway it's all GPS and offline maps loaded on
devices.

For longer tours I use a Garmin GPS device on the handlebar of my bike.
A microSD card contains the 1:25,000 Swiss topographic map, which shows
a lot of detail. For parts of Europe and the USA I've uses maps from
https://openmtbmap.org/.Â* Longer tours typically involve a GPS track
planned in advance, either my own or one downloaded from a biking
website. Then just a quick tap on the screen shows where to turn off
when on some remote forest road: "Is this the 5th or the 6th crossing,
and which one was I supposed to turn at?" is no longer a difficult
question. A battery charge is enough for about 8 hours, so the device
runs continuously on a tour. This is also good for geo-tagging photos
and for later seeing later where I actually went.

My smartphone is loaded with topo maps for use with the
SwitzerlandMobility app. This provides offline access to maps like these:
https://www.schweizmobil.ch/en/summer.htmlÂ* (Click on the "Map" area and
zoom in to see the maps in detail.) With these maps I can highlight
hiking, biking,and mountain biking routes, and the scale changes from
about 1:2,500 to 1:100,000 as needed.
I also subscribe to their service, so that I can upload tracks or draw
tracks using their web interface at home, and then download them to my
smartphone for use underway. Maps showing tour tracks can be downloaded
as pdf files, and I often add these to the set of landscape photos from
a tour. For example this tour from last September:
https://flic.kr/s/aHskJ9oqN1 (where I just now noticed that the map for
the second tour day had more "views" than anything else in the set).

Sometimes while planning at home I want to see whether what the topo map
shows as a trail is actually there or not. At https://map.geo.admin.ch I
zoom in to about 1:1,000 and then switch to aerial photos. At least in a
grassy area, a trail that's used to even a moderate extent will show up
as different from the surroundings.

And finally, the GPS-based PeakFinder app is good for identifying the
mountains on the horizon.

My last multi-day tour that required some serious navigating was when my
wife and I and one friend followed, as close as possible, the route of
the Ohio & Erie Canal from Portsmouth on the Ohio River to Cleveland on
Lake Erie. The Ohio & Erie was the canal completed in the early 1800s
when the state was about 25 years old. Ohio had attracted lots of
settlers, but its farmers couldn't get their harvests to market because
transportation was so poor. The canal changed that and brought great
prosperity. My goal was to ride the roads as close as possible to the
canal's route.

The northern 1/3 of the canal required no real navigating. At a certain
point, the roads began sporting "Scenic Byway" signs, then we got to
places where the towpath is available as a bike trail. The last few
miles in the north required riding streets through an industrial area of
Cleveland, but it would have been hard to go too far wrong. To finish
our ride, we just rode north until we ran into Lake Erie.

But the southern 2/3 was a different matter. The canal route is unmarked
and has been largely ignored. I knew it ran parallel to the Scioto
River, but I wasn't even sure whether it was east or west of it.

So I began research months before the ride. I spent time in the library
and online, but failed to find maps that showed the route in enough
detail for me to pick the closest roads.

Ultimately, I bought a copy of the Ohio Atlas and Gazetteer
https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Gazette.../dp/0899332706
which is a magazine-bound book roughly 12" x 16" filled with 66 detailed
maps covering the entire state at 1:150,000 scale. (That's about 2.4
miles to the inch.) I sat down with my library documents and websites
and began looking for clues on the maps. In some places, the maps noted
"Abandoned canal" which made things very easy. At other places, I
spotted "Canal Road" or "Canal Street" or "Water Street" inside towns. I
circled or highlighted all such clues, and added plenty of notes in the
margins plus penciled arrows on the roads I chose. Then I cut out the
pages we'd need for the trip and carried those with me.

When we started the ride, I soon found my guess about staying west of
the Scioto was correct. Not only is it the more pleasant route _and_ the
route of the famous Tour of the Scioto River Valley bike ride (TOSRV),
but we occasionally saw the remains of locks or the contours of the
remaining ditch in people's yards. We found a few historic markers, but
not many. But on occasion, we'd be on some isolated county road and see
the remains of a lock, like some ancient monument, overgrown with trees;
or even a section of the canal, still filled with water.

We did quite well following the canal route. I remember only one serious
missed turn, near Blackhand Gorge, that required a bit of doubling back.
And the historic aspect made this five day trip one of the more pleasant
ones I've done.

It was done almost entirely without GPS, because I had just taken
delivery of my first smart phone, and didn't even realize that GPS was
built into it! I remember discovering the GPS after one spot where the
map was out of date. What showed as a road on the map had apparently
been taken over by some mining company. We were then forced to do
several miles on a loose gravel road. My wife and our friend chose to
walk their bikes over much of it, so I began browsing my new phone while
waiting for them to catch up. I probably slapped my forehead when I
found the GPS function.

So yes, the GPS would have helped a bit. But I really don't think I'd
have been able to do the research to find the right roads without having
those detailed paper maps.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 3/9/2019 6:51 PM, jbeattie wrote:

I prefer not to interact with humans, but when I do, I find that many of those curious creatures don't know the difference between two miles and ten miles or up from down -- or a tail wind from a headwind.

Years and years back one enthusiastic new member of our club decided to
lead his first ride. In our ride schedule he labeled it as 50 flat
miles, even though it was in the super-hilly county just south of us.
Many of us wondered how this newbie found 50 flat miles there.

Turned out he "found" them only by driving in his car. When you have a
gas pedal, almost anything is flat.

--
- Frank Krygowski

On Sat, 9 Mar 2019 12:14:45 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Honestly, I hadn't checked that, mostly because I'm so happy with paper
maps (and Google Maps when needed). But checking now, I see there is a
lot of GIS information available from our county engineer's office. They
even have online links to county maps going back to the 1800s. I think I
just found a new way to pleasantly waste lots of time!

It's not always a waste of time, although it's easy enough to turn
anything that one finds interesting into a time burner. I've used GIS
information to generate all kinds of bizarre maps. I do some radio
coverage maps and propagation softwa
http://www.ve2dbe.com/english1.html
http://www.learnbydestroying.com/jeffl/coverage/ (try the JPG's)
In the past, I would overlay the results on topo maps generated using
DEM and SRTM topo data:
https://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/srtm/
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/SRTM
That was rather dull, so I started generating 3D anaglyph JPG's and
passing out red/blue glasses:
https://www.google.com/search?q=anaglyph&tbm=isch
Argh... I thought I had some examples saved on my web pile, but
apparently not. Something like these:
https://freegeographytools.com/2007/elevation-slope-terrain-and-3d-anaglyph-map-shading-in-microdem
http://www.ve2dbe.com/images.html (see stereo images)
Anyway, they were good enough to disrupt a county planning board
meeting (or two).

Incidentally, one can mix art and cartography:
https://www.imusgeographics.com
https://www.columbian.com/news/2018/aug/05/see-beauty-through-the-eyes-of-a-master-cartographer/

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Thu, 07 Mar 2019 21:24:33 -0600, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/7/2019 4:46 PM, wrote:
That was commonly the case but the "future roads" were
generally marked as dashed lines.
I even have here a 1988 Motoring Ordinance Map of
Great Britain, Scotland, Wales, the Hebrides, Wight Mann
and other lesser islands.
By the way, GPS also doesn't have all of the roads.

There are also 'former roads' notably in Nebraska but also
northern Wisconsin which were once paved but are now gravel
and often no longer plowed in winter, being not especially
useful as population has changed ( from small farms to large
with less population).

Most (not all) of the online maps follow the conventions of the USGS
top maps. Notice that only roads "under construction" are marked and
that planned roads are not marked:
https://www.topozone.com/topographic-map-legend-symbols/
While not mentioned in the map legend, abandoned roads appear on the
USGS maps as a very spotty black line, as if someone had applied an
eraser to the map in an attempt to obscure but not remove the road
line.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

On Thu, 07 Mar 2019 21:24:33 -0600,
AMuzi wrote:

There are also 'former roads' notably in Nebraska but also
northern Wisconsin which were once paved but are now gravel and
often no longer plowed in winter, being not especially useful
as population has changed ( from small farms to large with less
population).

Okay, you've piqued my curiosity. I've lived roughly 40 years in
Nebraska and 20 years in Indiana, and ridden quite a lot in both
states. I've noticed some of these de-paved roads here in
Indiana, but don't recall encountering any back in Nebraska. While
I expect you are right and my experience is just a small pile of
anecdotes, I do wonder about the basis for this being notable in
Nebraska.

--
Ted Heise West Lafayette, IN, USA

Am 06.03.2019 um 04:53 schrieb Frank Krygowski:
One interesting effect I've noticed is that our car's GPS shows our
progress while we're in a tunnel.

I assume it's just extrapolating from our speed when we entered. I
haven't had the chance (nor desire) to slow down radically while in a
tunnel to test it.

Typical car navigation GPS keeps the speed (and often direction) from
the time when the car has entered the tunnel.
Junctions and traffic jams in tunnels are the one any only situation
where the in-built car navigation from upper-class cars beats google
maps because they replace the missing GPS with wheel and steering
informations.

Am 07.03.2019 um 23:38 schrieb :
I don't think that there is a road in the world that isn't marked at the intersections.
Tom, you must not get out much.

I didn't have any trouble in Europe. I didn't have any trouble in almost all of the western USA.

It all depends on what types of roads you pick. Road signs are usually
good enough if you only wish to reach a certain place (if you are able
to guess from the map whether the destination on the sign is going to be
the next village one mile up or a large town 30 miles up) but often not
good enough if you wish to take a certain route (avoid/pick the mountain
road rather than the flat road).

Am 07.03.2019 um 08:41 schrieb James:

Oh, and the reason I know that 3W isn't quite enough, is because my
nephew tried it and his phone kept loosing battery power while being
charged by the dynamo.

That's most likely due to some "smart" charging logic on the phone
rather than from lack of power.

Samsung e.g. assumes a weak charger when the supplied current drops and
never increases the power consumption again after a minimum = you need
to unplug and re-plug the phone after each stop; I believe the iPhone
has a similar strategy. So the only meaningful way for these phones is
to put a power-bank between the hub dynamo and the smart phone.